


Demon School

by Zab43



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Demon School, Education, Gen, Hell, High School, Seven Deadly Sins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-17
Updated: 2020-09-17
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:21:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26510572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zab43/pseuds/Zab43
Summary: “Beelzebub was fed up. It was the third week of the new Demon training college and she was seriously regretting coming up with the idea.”How Hell got started with the whole ‘tempting humans into sin’ thing...
Relationships: Beelzebub & Crowley & Hastur & Ligur, Beelzebub & Satan | Lucifer (Good Omens)
Kudos: 12





	Demon School

**Author's Note:**

> This is kind of a spin off idea from another story I’m writing and I haven’t even posted the chapter with it in yet, so it was a bit pointless me telling you that, as it won’t mean anything….
> 
> However, the rationale for putting this here is the idea of a school for demons was starting to grow in my mind alarmingly and I didn’t want it to take over the other story unduly but really wanted to explore it a little further.
> 
> ….and don’t pretend you didn’t know SATs were a Hellish invention!
> 
> There's a potential for more chapters - but I'm not going to commit yet - it's a weird idea and people might hate it (comments welcome)

Beelzebub was fed up. It was the third week of the new Demon training college and she was seriously regretting coming up with the idea.

Once the humans had been tempted out of Eden and God had promised to forgive them, all Hell(!) had broken lose…. to coin a phrase. There was so much anger around in Hell you could taste it in the air. The demons were incensed. Why was She going to forgive the humans when she wouldn’t forgive them?

After a few weeks of Hell-fire fuelled rages, rocks being thrown, demons fighting and screaming at each other in frustration and general awfulness, Satan had stepped in. He called a meeting of the seven princes and asked for suggestions to stop the riots.

Mammon thought they should bribe the demons - offer them some sort of material reward for better behaviour. They couldn’t think of anything of any appreciable value to bribe them with though, so this was dismissed.

Asmodeus suggested another type of incentive - a much more hands on approach. Smothering the demons in some sort of carnal pleasure to take their mind off recent events up on earth. This hadn’t met with approval. Although some demons (at this point Satan glared at Asmodeus) were very keen on that sort of thing, not all were. Trying to force them into unwanted couplings really didn’t seem like a sensible way to calm them down.

Leviathan simply simmered with discontent at the humans getting a better deal. It wasn’t fair, why did they get the promise of forgiveness ? Why wouldn’t She let them have the same? He retreated into a sour-faced sulk and refused to come up with any suggestions at all.

Belphegor couldn’t be bothered to think of anything. He yawned widely and wanted to know why it even mattered. Why couldn’t they just sit down in Hell and relax, leave the humans to it, why make all the effort to try and do something?

Beelzebub had the only real suggestion. The humans had created a whole host of interesting things since earth had come into being, her flies had smelled the sweet honey, the aroma of cooking meats, the brewing of beer. She longed to indulge in these delicacies.

Her plan involved working around the conditions for God’s supposed ‘forgiveness’. The humans had to be virtuous, good and holy, venerating Her and following Her rules in order to be forgiven. What if they worked to stop this from happening? Tempted the whole lot of ‘em into breaking the rules and failing to win Her approval. That way they’d all be damned together and, entirely coincidentally, they could get a few of the demons to bring back some of the things up on earth she dearly wanted to try.

Lucifer (differentiated from Satan by a pure technicality and to some demons still synonymous with him) was intrigued by the suggestion. This was his Hell and he didn’t want a bunch of badly behaved demons ruining it. He was proud of the rebellion and wanted to be proud of the new demons and the new Hell too. A squabbling, fighting rabble wasn’t what he’d envisioned. However, if they could band together, as they had done in the rebellion, and all work to spoil Her plans that would be something worth boasting about.

Satan agreed wholeheartedly (if he had a heart). He was incredibly angry at Her treatment of him and his followers. His rage had transmuted from fiery blasts of destructive energy to a pure, white-hot hatred of all that She created. He was visibly shaking from the exertion of keeping himself under control. This plan to avenge themselves on Her via her newest creation greatly appealed.

The next question was how to achieve this aim. This is where Beelzebub regretted her intervention. They should look at the virtues She had specified the humans should exhibit and create their own vices to match them.

Against Charity they would promote Greed. For Chastity there was Lust. Where they should show Kindness let them feel Envy. In place of Diligence, Sloth and Temperance replaced with Gluttony. Where Humility was required they should promote Pride. Finally in place of Patience, Wrath should rule.

She suggested that each of the seven Princes should adopt one of them. They should then undertake to train and coach the denizens of Hell in how to tempt the humans into their designated sin.

It had seemed like a great idea at the time. Satan had certainly thought so, immediately adopting for himself the sin of Wrath. It suited him and would provide a good outlet for his anger. Beelzebub could hear him yelling at the poor class of Wrath demons down the hall. It was intensely irritating.

Satan had eyed the assembled princes and with great delight assigned each their sin. This appeared to be based on their reactions to his request for suggestions. Mammon got Greed, Asmodeus Lust, Leviathan Envy, Belphegor Sloth and Beelzebub Gluttony. Lucifer, Satan’s favourite and closer to him that any of the others, received Pride.

Thus Beelzebub was now sat in a newly created classroom with desks and chairs full of various demons. They were attempting to learn to be gluttons. Some were more successful than others.

Crowley had taken to alcohol like a duck to water - downing jugs of the newly created beer until he could hardly stand up. Others had preferred food - Beelzebub was reminded of her own pile of treats, now unfortunately all consumed. Ligur had eaten almost an entire cow - the hooves and tail arranged artistically on his desk.

Of the notable failures was Hastur, who didn’t seem to like food and found alcohol made him ill even in small doses. Beelzebub buzzed at him angrily “how you gonna be a glutton if you can’t even finish a bottle of beer?” The other demon belched loudly, his head fell onto the desk and he started snoring.

“This is Gluttony not Sloth” screamed the small demon to no avail. Behind her Crowley muttered “and Gluttony not Wrath” with a drunken giggle at the rhyme, Beelzebub turned on him angrily. She then realised more anger would only make his criticism even more apt and retired grumpily to her throne at the front. “Get me more cake” she yelled at the nearest demon.

This couldn’t go on indefinitely. Maybe they should divide their time a little, allow her some time off. In her head a schedule started forming. Each period of teaching could be based around an earth year, divided into two parts. On earth years were divided into months and there were twelve in a year so call it a ‘six month-er’. That was too much of a mouthful - lets abbreviate it: ‘semester’ worked reasonably well.

Stick a few breaks in between each term of teaching. A couple of terms to each semester and a break between them - call them half term holidays. A set period for them to learn their lessons with breaks in the interim and a rotation for the demons so she didn’t have to see the same faces over and over again.

Her brain whirled. They’d need a timetable and some sort of lesson plans to ensure the demons all learnt at the same rate. Also a test of their knowledge, make sure all this teaching had actually stuck. Yes - some sort of standard assessment tests -the phrase was too long, they could use the initials and call them SATs…..

Beelzebub’s imagination ploughed on and on and thus Hell invented it’s education system - which was entirely coincidentally adopted in parts of earth, unknowingly implementing Hell’s system as their own (which probably explains a few things).


End file.
